Belgium ranked among top European innovators

Belgium ranked 25th out of 126 in this year’s Global Innovation Index (GII), keeping its rating as a ‘strong innovator’ in the 2018 European Innovation Scoreboard.

The GII several enduring strengths of Belgium, including its logistics performance (ranked 6th), expenditure on R&D (11th), school life expectancy (2nd) and university/industry research collaboration (9th).

In terms of innovation linkages and collaboration, Belgium is the overall leader in the European Union.

Its combination of world-class R&D centers such as imec and VIB, the innovative qualities of its SMEs and collaborations between the public and private sector make the country a strong innovator.

The Netherlands and Luxembourg, however, managed to outperform their neighbor in the Innovation category.

The Scoreboard noted that the EU’s innovation performance as a whole continues to improve and that the general outlook is positive.

Good to know:

The European Innovation Scoreboard provides a comparative analysis of innovation performance in EU countries, other European countries and regional neighbors. It assesses relative strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems and helps countries identify areas they need to address.